We present a general approach to obtain effective field theories for topological crystalline insulators whose low-energy theories are described by massive Dirac fermions. We show that these phases are characterized by the responses to spatially dependent mass parameters with interfaces. These mass interfaces implement the dimensional reduction procedure such that the state of interest is smoothly deformed into a topological crystal, which serves as a representative state of a phase in the general classification. Effective field theories are obtained by integrating out the massive Dirac fermions, and various quantized topological terms are uncovered. Our approach can be generalized to other crystalline symmetry protected topological phases and provides a general strategy to derive effective field theories for such crystalline topological phases.
Topological crystalline insulators (TCIs) are insulating materials whose topological property relies on generic crystalline symmetries. Based on first-principles calculations, we study a three-dimensional (3D) crystal constructed by stacking two-dimensional TCI layers. Depending on the inter-layer interaction, the layered crystal can realize diverse 3D topological phases characterized by two mirror Chern numbers (MCNs) ($mu_1,mu_2$) defined on inequivalent mirror-invariant planes in the Brillouin zone. As an example, we demonstrate that new TCI phases can be realized in layered materials such as a PbSe (001) monolayer/h-BN heterostructure and can be tuned by mechanical strain. Our results shed light on the role of the MCNs on inequivalent mirror-symmetric planes in reciprocal space and open new possibilities for finding new topological materials.
Here, we analyse two Dirac fermion species in two spatial dimensions in the presence of general quartic contact interactions. By employing functional bosonisation techniques, we demonstrate that depending on the couplings of the fermion interactions the system can be effectively described by a rich variety of topologically massive gauge theories. Among these effective theories, we obtain an extended Chern-Simons theory with higher order derivatives as well as two coupled Chern-Simons theories. Our formalism allows for a general description of interacting fermions emerging, for example, at the gapped boundary of three-dimensional topological crystalline insulators.
The construction and classification of crystalline symmetry protected topological (SPT) phases in interacting bosonic and fermionic systems have been intensively studied in the past few years. Crystalline SPT phases are not only of conceptual importance, but also provide great opportunities towards experimental realization since space group symmetries naturally exist for any realistic material. In this paper, we systematically classify the crystalline topological superconductors (TSC) and topological insulators (TI) in 2D interacting fermionic systems by using an explicit real-space construction. In particular, we discover an intriguing fermionic crystalline topological superconductor that can only be realized in interacting fermionic systems (i.e., not in free-fermion or bosonic SPT systems). Moreover, we also verify the recently conjectured crystalline equivalence principle for generic 2D interacting fermionic systems.
Motivated by the discovery of the quantum anomalous Hall effect in Cr-doped ce{(Bi,Sb)2Te3} thin films, we study the generic states for magnetic topological insulators and explore the physical properties for both magnetism and itinerant electrons. First-principles calculations are exploited to investigate the magnetic interactions between magnetic Co atoms adsorbed on the ce{Bi2Se3} (111) surface. Due to the absence of inversion symmetry on the surface, there are Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya-like twisted spin interactions between the local moments of Co ions. These nonferromagnetic interactions twist the collinear spin configuration of the ferromagnet and generate various magnetic orders beyond a simple ferromagnet. Among them, the spin spiral state generates alternating counterpropagating modes across each period of spin states, and the skyrmion lattice even supports a chiral mode around the core of each skyrmion. The skyrmion lattice opens a gap at the surface Dirac point, resulting in the anomalous Hall effect. These results may inspire further experimental investigation of magnetic topological insulators.
We study topological crystalline insulators doped with magnetic impurities, in which ferromagnetism at the surface lowers the electronic energy by spontaneous breaking of a crystalline symmetry. The number of energetically equivalent ground states is sensitive to the crystalline symmetry of the surface, as well as the precise density of electrons at the surface. We show that for a SnTe model in the topological state, magnetic states can have twofold symmetry, sixfold symmetry, or eightfold degenerate minima. We compute spin stiffnesses within the model to demonstrate the stability of ferromagnetic states, and consider their ramifications for thermal disordering. Possible experimental consequences of the surface magnetism are discussed.